How can get my form to be on top of everything all the time?

Question

I have these little cursor shaped forms that I need to be on Top of everything, all the time...
FormStyle is already fsStayOnTop
I use this code:

 SetWindowPos(tempCursor.Handle, HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOMOVE or SWP_NOSIZE or SWP_NOACTIVATE );

and this (even though I don't exactly know what it does):

procedure TCursorFrm.CreateParams(var Params: TCreateParams);
const
   WS_EX_NOACTIVATE = $8000000;
begin
   inherited;
   Params.ExStyle := Params.ExStyle + WS_EX_NOACTIVATE;
end;

but I still cannot get my forms to be on Top of TMenuItems. How can I make my forms stay on top of everything?

Answer 1

I think that's as good as you're going to get. If your form stayed on top of menus, then users wouldn't be able to see a menu when they opened it. Doing something like that, especially when the system doesn't make it available through any easy means, borders on the malicious, or at least feels that way. You don't want your users to think that your program is malicious, so my advice would be to not try to do this in the first place.

Answer 2

Quick, slightly hacky fix: Call this from an Timer, 10 times a second:

BringWindowToTop(Handle)

Just tried it and it works! Maybe you can find a way to make it less "brute force", but I'm not sure how.

Answer 3

I think that you can look into DirectX. I believe that it allows overlays over primary image. You can open it in non-exlusive mode and draw overlay over desktop. But I'm NOT sure about it. Just a guess.

Answer 4

This has to be the ultimate, or worst, piece of hackery I'll publish.

1. Set your FormStyle to be fsStayOnTop (This step may not actually be necessary)
2. Drop a TTimer on your form and set it's interval to 100

3. In the OnTimer event place the following code:

   if visible then SetWindowPos(Self.Handle, HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOSIZE or SWP_NOMOVE or SWP_NOACTIVATE);

I'm using this in one of my projects and it seems to work alright.